US is waging financial war to stop China’s rise, says veteran politician
- Former Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan tells students that the seemingly chaotic US approach is in fact highly targeted
- 2015 Trade Promotion Authority Act gives Washington power to freeze countries out of US markets and international payment system
China must be vigilant as the US is waging a calculated financial war to curb its rise, outspoken former Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan has said.
“Some may say that the politicians and senators might seen to be making a lot of noise and what they say appears to be a mess … but actually there are well-calculated moves behind the scenes,” he said.
“They are in fact a combination of moves in a systematic game plan.”
The 68-year-old former mayor, who is now a deputy director of the China Centre for International Economic Changes, a Beijing-based think-tank, said these steps could be traced to the 2015 Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) Act passed by the US Congress in 2015.
“There is a section in the TPA which says the US government can undertake a series of measures amounting to trade and financial war against any countries that have been designated by the US Treasury as a currency manipulator,” Huang said.
For example, Huang said the TPA empowers the US government to stop trading with any targeted countries, disallow companies from these countries from participating in US financial markets and ban American banks and financial companies from doing business with these countries.